


Three Refusals

by ariel2me



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26185132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: Maester Aemon was courteous, but firm. (A Storm of Swords)Three times Maester Aemon turned down an offer, courteously but firmly.Chapter 1: Maester Aemon turned down his father’s offer to make him part of the king’s council.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 51





	Three Refusals

_“_ _Aemon took his vows and left the Citadel to serve at some lordling’s court … until his royal uncle died without issue. The Iron Throne passed to the last of King Daeron’s four sons. That was Maekar, Aemon’s father. The new king summoned all his sons to court and would have made Aemon part of his councils, but he refused, saying that would usurp the place rightly belonging to the Grand Maester._ _Instead he served at the keep of his eldest brother, another Daeron.” (A Clash of Kings)_

**______________________**

In the old days, the days before Aemon was sent to the Citadel, their father’s summons almost always included Aemon and Egg both. The two boys would make their way to Prince Maekar’s solar together, holding hands, like as not. They would be waiting anxiously outside the door, nervously tapping their feet in rhythmic unison, until their father finally commanded them to enter.

More often than not, Prince Maekar saw Egg as the instigator, and Aemon as the follower, of whatever transgression the boys had committed on that particular occasion. He was not always right, but the boys had learned over time that their father was not so easily dissuaded from his conviction. His youngest son was the mischievous troublemaker, the prince judged, while his third son was too soft-hearted for his own good, too easily led by sentiments.

“You are the older brother. You should be tempering his recklessness, not encouraging it,” Prince Maekar would rebuke Aemon.

Egg would bristle, hearing that. “Aemon was only making sure that I would not hurt myself,” he would counter.

“Stopping you instead of joining you would have accomplished that goal more effectively.”

Egg would say, “Listen to yourself, Father. Do you truly believe that I am so easy to be stopped? I am as stubborn as a mule. You said so yourself, on many occasions. Surely you have not forgotten that, Father.”

Scowling, Prince Maekar would reply, “I did not say it so you could use it against me when it suits you, Aegon. And it is not anything for you to be proud of. It is _not_ a compliment, to be called as stubborn as a mule.” He would then turn his sharp gaze to Aemon’s direction. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself? Will you allow your little brother to do all the talking for you?”

Aemon was not like Egg. Egg talked back, countered their father’s points, debated his arguments and enjoyed it too, Aemon half suspected. Aemon seldom did those things. He was not slow of wit, far from it. He was cleverer than all his brothers combined, Maester Melaquin had secretly praised him, in the absence of others. But in front of his father, Aemon’s speech all too often became as slow and as hesitant as his sword hand. 

They had been playing with the painted soldiers and their little banners on Maester Melaquin’s green table, reenacting the battle on the Redgrass Field. _This_ was not the transgression that had incurred their lord father’s wrath, for Maester Melaquin had encouraged the game, saying that it would help the boys to remember their lessons more swiftly, by playing out the battle using the painted soldiers. Aemon and Egg had reenacted many different battles on that green table, from the Wars of Conquest to the Blackfyre Rebellion. 

This time, Aemon had suggested a different way of playing – what if the Blackfyres had triumphed on the Redgrass Field? Egg had agreed eagerly enough, for he was always on the lookout for something new and out of the ordinary. Maester Melaquin walked in while the boys were fully engrossed with their game. The maester had frowned, when he saw how the battle was being fought out on the green table, but he had not said a word otherwise. He had brought the matter to Prince Maekar’s attention instead. 

“I … I was the one who came up with the idea, Father,” Aemon confessed, his voice trembling. 

Prince Maekar scoffed. “You confess in order to shield your brother from my wrath, no doubt. There are other fathers in the realm who would see that as admirable, to be sure. I do not share that sentiment. Your instinct to protect your little brother from my wrath will only spoil him. Protect him from being unfairly treated by others, by all means, but protecting him from facing the fair and just consequences of his own actions will not help him in the least.”

“But it really _was_ my suggestion,” Aemon insisted, more firmly this time. “Egg would tell you, Father.”

Prince Maekar glared at his youngest son. Egg bit his lower lip and refused to say a word.

Their father’s eyes moved from Egg to Aemon, then back to Egg again. “Who is shielding whom, this time?” he roared, in a voice as loud as thunder.

“I am not shielding Egg … this time.” Admittedly, Aemon had done so in the past. “It truly _was_ my suggestion, Father. _I_ was the instigator, not Egg. Not this time.”

A long and excruciating silence followed, while Prince Maekar regarded his third son evenly. “And why, pray tell,” he finally asked, in a deceptively calm tone of voice, “do you consider it fitting to replay the battle with our side losing? Do you bear such a grudge towards your lord father that you wish to see him defeated in battle? Was my head put on a spike, in this game of yours?”

“No, Father!” Aemon and Egg both exclaimed, horrified at the thought.

Aemon tried to explain, “I only wanted to see what could have happened. The battle could so easily have gone the other way.”

“It could have. That is the troubling thing,” Prince Maekar said. He stared at Aemon intently, as if his gaze could penetrate into the deepest core of his son’s being. “Was that truly it? You only wanted to see what might have been? There is no other reason?” he demanded.

Aemon nodded, all too quickly. His gaze strayed to his feet, and remained there. He dared not lift his eyes, dared not submit his often too revealing face to his father’s painstaking examination once more. 

_Was that truly it?_ It was, and it wasn’t. But how could Aemon explain it to his father, of all people? Prince Maekar would not understand. He was a man of firm convictions and unshaken certainties; that was how he had always presented himself to his children, and how he expected his children to be as well.

After doling out what he deemed as the appropriate punishment to each of the boys, Prince Maekar sent them out of his solar with a terse, “You are dismissed.” 

“The sneak!” Egg exclaimed, after they exited their father’s solar. “Maester Melaquin, he went and told on us. How could he? I thought he was our friend.”

“He is not our friend, Egg. How could he be? He has his duties as a maester,” Aemon replied, though his mind was elsewhere. He had sneaked one last glance before closing the door to his father’s solar. Prince Maekar was sitting still, so very still, as still as a figure carved in stone. His eyes were staring at the tapestry depicting King Daeron the Second and Prince Maron of Dorne kneeling before the statue of Baelor the Blessed. He was looking at a symbol of peace, but it was the sight of war he was thinking of, Aemon would wager. The sight of the battle on the Redgrass Field, the battle that could have easily gone the other way. 

Years later, as he prepared to enter his father’s solar – in the Red Keep this time, not at Summerhall – Maester Aemon thought of that glance he had sneaked of his father. He had not told anyone, not even Egg. Not then, and not later. It had felt like a violation, as if he had espied his father’s secret self that he had no business observing. To reveal it to anyone else would have compounded that violation, he felt.

The command to enter his father’s solar sounded as curt as ever. There was no earthly reason to use ten words when one would suffice, his father believed. When he entered, his father was standing by the window, looking out at the courtyard below.

 _He is counting up how many knights and men-at-arms each lord has brought to court for his coronation,_ Maester Aemon speculated. Numbers. Prince Maekar liked numbers best. _No_ , Aemon swiftly corrected himself, _King Maekar_. King Maekar liked numbers best. There was an unshakeable certainty in numbers that was severely lacking in words, even the most poignant of words, he had told his sons and daughters.

The king must have heard his son’s footfalls entering the room, but his gaze remained fixed on the courtyard. Aemon considered clearing his throat, or calling out, “Your Grace.” In the end, he did neither. He observed his father observing others, openly, this time, not surreptitiously as he had often done during his childhood. 

The new crown his father had commissioned looked heavy, heavier than the one Uncle Aerys used to wear. With its band of red gold, the crown sat on King Maekar’s head like a ring of fire. Its black iron points looked sharp enough to pierce a man’s flesh.

 _With my sword, and the swords of all the knights loyal and true, I will bring peace to the realm_ , his father had written to Maester Aemon, in the same letter summoning him to court. If the contradiction troubled the king in any way, he made no mention of it in his letter, though his third son thought about it long and hard afterwards. Some peace, Aemon reflected, had to be won at the point of a sword, to be sure, but it was crucial for a king to know when it was time to lay down his sword. 

The meagre size of Lord Bracken’s retinue must have displeased the king. He scoffed, turning his countenance even more severe and uncompromising. Not for the first time, Aemon wondered what his father’s face had looked like, when he used to sing to his lady wife. His voice was like honey poured over thunder, Lady Dyanna had said. Most people were more familiar with Maekar’s voice sounding as ominous and as intimidating as rolling thunder. 

It would be too much of an oversimplification to say that there was a softer side underneath his father’s stern exterior. It did not end there, not at all. There was iron underneath the softer side. And underneath that? Layers, and more layers. Like an onion.

 _A man is a sum of all his parts,_ his father’s father used to say. But what if the parts contradicted themselves so starkly? How, then, would you proceed with the summing up? What weight would you assign to each separate part? And what kind of man would he himself be summed up as, Aemon wondered, when all was said and done, and his own life had come to an end? There would be no children of his blood to do the summing up, in _his_ case. Would that prove to be a curse, or a blessing? He did not know the answers to these questions. Perhaps he never would. 

He wondered how his father would react, if King Maekar ever heard his son comparing him to an onion. 

While Maester Aemon was preoccupied with sums and onions, he failed to notice that his father’s gaze had shifted from the courtyard to the collar of chain around his throat. The sight of the maester’s chain clearly displeased his father. 

The king said, “I never wanted you to be a maester. A prince of the blood, serving in some lordling’s keep, bowing and scraping to his inferior. It is most unfitting. But my lord father thought otherwise.”

“You sent Egg to be Ser Duncan’s squire, while Ser Duncan was still a hedge knight and not yet a knight sworn to the Prince of Summerhall. Some men would consider that equally as objectionable. A prince of the blood, serving a hedge knight, and a lowborn hedge knight at that. Yet you did not find that a troubling notion, Father.” 

“That is not at all the same thing. Squires serve knights. There is nothing unusual about that. They serve in order to be taught and trained, so they could become knights themselves someday. They do not do it so they could spend a lifetime in servitude.”

The life of a maester was a life of servitude,a life that was most unfitting for the grandson of a king, Prince Maekar had argued with his father, before his third son was sent to the Citadel.

“It is not fitting for a son of yours, do you mean?”

“You would not have done this, Father, if Aemon is one of _Baelor’s_ sons.”

What had ended Prince Maekar’s objection was King Daeron’s assertion that too many dragons were as dangerous as too few. Maester Aemon had overheard his father saying to his mother later, “Does he mean that as some kind of warning to me? Does my father suspect me of trying to use my sons to threaten Baelor and _his_ sons?” 

“Your father does not doubt your loyalty, I am sure,” his mother had replied, before adding, “Aemon does not necessarily have to take the vows to be a maester. He could use his time at the Citadel for the purpose of gaining knowledge, and not be chained and sworn as a maester of the Citadel at the end of it. I know many younger sons of Dorne who have done just that. He loves books. He loves learning. We both do. We both love how each page of a book could be a path into another universe, how it could take us to strange places and unfamiliar worlds.” 

“You are not the grandson of a king. A king whose crown is still threatened by pretenders from across the sea. You may love books to your heart’s content, Dya. Aemon is –“ 

“Aemon is the son of Prince Maekar, the renowned and redoubtable warrior?“

“I swore to be my father’s sword, the day he was denied _Blackfyre_ , the day he was robbed of the Targaryen’s ancestral sword by his own father. I swore to be my father’s fiercest defender from all enemies. Let my brothers be his gallant and chivalrous princes; that path is not for me to tread. I would rather be my father’s strongest protector instead. My sons –“

“Our sons are not _you,_ Maekar. They are separate beings created by the gods. They are not Maekar Targaryen reborn, just as our daughters are not Dyanna Dayne reborn. I would not expect Daella and Rhae to be _exactly_ as I am. The gods have not fashioned us to be mere copies of our fathers and mothers, or mere puppets. What would be the point of that? What would be the point of further creation, if it only repeats and duplicates what is already in existence?”

His father had made no reply to that, at least none that Aemon could hear.

 _Too many dragons are as dangerous as too few._ Aemon had always wondered if this was truly his grandfather’s reason for sending him to the Citadel.Perhaps it was one of King Daeron’s reasons, but not the _only_ reason. Perhaps the old king had an inkling and an instinct, about which path in life would best suit this particular grandson of his. And King Daeron knew that Prince Maekar would never allow any of his sons to take that path, unless his own father had commanded it. Aemon wondered too, if his mother had a hand in the decision, if she had gone to her good-father with a request, perhaps. 

He suspected that his relationship with his father would have been far more difficult and fraught, had he not been sent to the Citadel. As he grew older and his lack of skill in arms became more apparent, would his father have shown his disappointment more overtly, as Prince Maekar had done with his eldest son? Perhaps his grandfather’s decision to send Aemon to the Citadel had saved him from that fate.

A life of servitude, his father had called it. Maester Aemon preferred to think of it as a life dedicated to service. “A king,” he pointed out, to his father, “serves the realm and its people. You said so yourself, Father, on many occasions.”

King Maekar glowered. “Is this _Aegon_ standing before me? Your brother was the one with the penchant for using my own words against me.”

“Your words are not wrong, Father, not in this instance.”

“But they are wrong in other instances?”

“I did not say that.”

“It is not at all the same thing. A king is neither chained nor imprisoned.”

“A maester’s collar is made of chain to remind him that he is sworn to serve. It is not made of chain as the means to imprison him.”

“It is a chain nonetheless. You cannot remove it even in bed. How does it feel,” the king demanded, “to sleep and dream with that chain strangling your neck?”

Aemon intuited a deeper truth behind his father’s question. The crown … the crown must feel like it was strangling his father’s brow at times. He did not go to sleep wearing his crown, but it would haunt the king’s dream nonetheless.

“I am a maester, and you are a king. We are what we are, Father, regardless of the path we have taken to reach this point.”

“You chose to take your vows as a maester when you were nine-and-ten. That choice is made. There is no turning back. But you still have a part to play. I would have you in my council, Aemon.”

He had expected this. Egg had prepared him for what was coming. “Is this the command of a king, or a father?” Maester Aemon asked.

“What difference would that make?”

“It would make a world of a difference to me.”

“Would my answer change yours?”

“No. But I would like to know it nonetheless.”

“It is an honor extended to you by your lord father.”

“Then I would hope that you would forgive me for presuming to counsel you, Father.”

“Say what you will, Aemon. I have neither the time nor the patience for false courtesies.”

“My courtesy is sincerely meant.”

“What is your counsel, pray tell? Be quick with it.”

“It is not a wise decision, Father, to put me in the king’s council. It would usurp the rightful place of the Grand Maester.”

“Pray credit me with more sense than that, Aemon. I do not intend to exclude the Grand Maester from my council. You will _both_ be in the king’s council.”

“Even that, Father, is not fitting. I have only been a maester for a few short years. I am not qualified to be in your council alongside the Grand Maester, alongside the officially selected representative of the Citadel. It would open you up to the charges of nepotism and favoritism. It would bring discord between the king and the Citadel.”

“It is not a wise decision, you said? And as a maester, you deem yourself wiser than I am, no doubt. That is what the Citadel has taught you.”

“The Citadel taught me that wise men may grow arrogant in their wisdom, but a maester must always remain humble. It is with deep humility that I offer you my counsel, Your Grace.”

“Offer me your counsel while declining my honor at the same time?”

“I mean no disrespect by it. Or dishonor.”

“I have need of you. I have need of my sons.”

The admission came grudgingly, reluctantly. Had it come more easily, it would not have weakened Maester Aemon’s resolve to the extent that it did. _I must be firm,_ he reminded himself. He must be firm in his conviction and his response. The path he had decided was the correct one, for himself, and for his father. Of this, at least, he had no doubt, though doubts usually came to Maester Aemon often enough. 

“You will always have my honest counsel, Father,” he said. “I do not have to be a member of the king’s council for that to happen.”

“Then so be it,” King Maekar said, curtly. “But I will not have you continue serving at the keep of this lordling in the Reach. He would presume to make use of you, to make use of the king’s son to gain influence in court.”

“Do you think me so feeble, that I would allow myself to be used in such a way, Father?”

“Your consent is immaterial. Your presence at his keep would be enough. He would presume all the same, whether you allow it or not. And others would assume that he has gained undue influence in court _through_ you, regardless of the truth of the matter. Surely the Citadel must have foreseen this, with all its collective wisdom?”

“The Citadel has agreed to send me to serve elsewhere.”

“That will not change anything. A different lord, yes, but the problem will remain the same.”

“I will serve as a maester at Summerhall. No one could accuse Daeron of trying to gain undue influence in court through the king’s third son. He is the king’s eldest son and heir after all. He has no need to do such a thing.”

“Did the Citadel come up with this solution? Or was it you, Aemon?”

“It does not matter whose notion it is, as long as it is a satisfactory solution.”

“It matters to me.”

“It was my notion to begin with. The Seneschal, after consulting with his fellow archmaesters, thought it a reasonable solution to the problem.”

“Maester Melaquin was not wrong about you. You would have been of great use to me in my council.” 

“I will be of use to Daeron at Summerhall.”

King Maekar made no reply, not with words, though his face revealed plenty. 

“Daeron will not be such a terrible king, Father,” Aemon said, gently. He added, though only in his head, _Daeron is not Aerion. He does not take pleasure from the pain and suffering he intentionally inflicts on others. A man who does not lack the consciousness of guilt is not beyond saving, and not beyond redemption._

“But will Daeron be a good king? Can I be certain of that?” The king shrugged, but it was a shrug of despair rather than indifference, a gesture weary beyond words. “My father had a promising heir once, and with my own hand, I slew my father’s heir. My own brother, and I cut him down with my mace.”

“It was a mishap, Father. You did not intend for Uncle Baelor to die.”

“Mishap or not, it happened. Dead is dead, intention be damned. Perhaps this is yet another punishment for that deed, a punishment I richly deserve. To spend all the years of my reign in torment about the kind of king my heir will turn out to be.”

“Yet _another_ punishment? What is the other, Father?”

The king removed the crown of fire-and-swords from his head. He held it with both hands stretched out, at a distance from himself, as if the crown was a poisoned chalice. “There it is. My gravest punishment. For the blow that slew my brother.”


End file.
